Ordinary people have reason to be queasy over developers

A casual question thrown out to a few people this week: what public issue was uppermost in their minds? No, it was not tax individualisation (forgotten already?), fears about the peace process (in denial?), or teacher accountability (given up?). It was planning, oddly enough. "It's a vague unease about that whole Spencer Dock thing," said one. "I just hope the right decision will be made."

My straw poll respondents are not, they admit, sufficiently au fait with computer models or the site area to be sure what the "right decision" should be. But they know enough to be queasy about a process that involves a public property, a billion pounds, and some self-regarding aesthetes who compare a US-based architect with the giants of Irish literature.

The oral hearing down at the Gresham Hotel in Dublin could be a fine diversion. There is the Biblical theme, the scenic tour, the literary references, the glimpse of Hollywood. First we had David v Goliath which became Goliath v Goliath, with the surreal intervention of Dermot Desmond. We imagined ourselves living at the foot of the Grand Canyon or "the Cliffs of Moher with windows"; saw our hero-architect posited as the equal of Joyce or Heaney (though "not even Heaney would say that every poem he wrote was of award-winning status", declared one iconoclast).

But this is no mere diversion. A local resident and father of two, who feared the scheme's size would lead to "a sense of being walled in", said he was placing his fears and feelings in the hands of the board's inspectors and the developers. In making his plea, the man touched a chord in anyone who ever watched helplessly as a motorway materialised within yards of his home or a nightclub opened across the road or a 400-house development threatened to swamp their village.

"This is the future," said Harry Crosbie on the Late Late Show last year, about the Spencer Dock proposals, "that's what people are afraid of." But he missed the point by a mile. People have every reason to be afraid of the "future". They've already seen it.

It affronts them every day in the shape of the Wood Quay bunkers, the ESB offices, the modern apartments soon-to-be-slums, the out-of-town shopping monoliths, the ruined glens, the housing developments cheek by jowl with ancient town walls, the holiday homes that blight every seaside town. The problem for Harry Crosbie and his partners is that ordinary people don't trust developers. Heck, even Dermot Desmond doesn't trust developers.

Referring to the non-appearance - surprise, surprise - of the museums, the marina, the public park and the cinema that featured in the original plans for the International Financial Services Centre and were supposed to make it a vibrant social and cultural area, Mr Desmond said: "Come to the IFSC in the evenings after 7 p.m. or at the weekends and it is dead. What the developers say they will do and that they actually deliver is entirely different."

The result is that people have learned the hard way to be suspicious, to think for themselves, to not be cowed by a lack of planning qualifications, or money, or political clout. The people of Kilcock rebelled against a housing development, not because they were afraid of the future but because they wanted the promised infrastructure to come first.

And this week, people power finally saw off plans for a visitor centre at Mullaghmore, in the Burren National Park. The Office of Public Works' proposal posed "an unacceptable risk to the conservation of natural habitats and species" in an area of international botanical importance, determined An Bord Pleanala. But who now remembers when the OPW needed no environmental impact assessments or planning permission for any of its activities? Or that it was the Burren Action Group which forced the State agency into the High Court, producing a judgment that finally made it bend to the Planning Acts?

The irony is that just as people are learning to square up to developers and planners, spurred on by the gunk seeping from the Flood tribunal, they are confronted with a new Planning Bill which will limit a citizen's right to object to such developments. Soon, anyone who wants to object to a planning application will face a mandatory charge of around £20.

You will not be able to appeal to An Bord Pleanala unless you have previously commented locally on the application and paid the fee. And you may not request a judicial review of a decision unless you can show a substantial "interest". So if you're poor and powerless anyway, or happen to be a fan of An Taisce (which claims it could be drummed out of business within two months), here's something to keep you on your toes.

And the reason? To cut down on those pesky objections and appeals filed by the public which cause those endless planning delays. But do they? According to planning and development consultant William K. Nowlan, a 66 per cent increase in planning applications over the past five years has virtually the same number of planners to process them.

In one planning authority with a permanent complement of 19 qualified planners, three jobs are vacant and 10 occupied by staff with fewer than six months' experience. This, says Nowlan, is not unusual. Meanwhile, Duchas, the heritage service responsible for issuing archaeological licences (a legal requirement for developers seeking to build near a historic site), said this week it has two people processing about 1,100 applications a year. So swamped has it been, according to its chief archaeologist, that it was "issuing licences on the blind".

Then again, if you think this is just more chattering classes hooey when all you want is a nice place to live, here's a thought. Whatever your view of (some) architects and planners, at least they're trained for the job. Yet only a few local authorities bother to employ an architect; some don't even have a planner on the staff. Kill off the likes of An Taisce and other environmental groups, and what are we left with?